Tricksters Queen (8 page)

The Balitangs halted at the entrance of the Robing Pavilion directly across from the Throne Hall. Only the litters and the cart with their clothes had been allowed this far past the inner gate.

Inside the Robing Pavilion, the maids and Rihani led their charges to a small private chamber where they could change into court dress. Aly neatened Dove's many braids and helped her into her gown, shoes, and overrobe. Once the Balitangs were ready, a footman escorted them to the Throne Hall across the Golden Road. Aly followed.

Nuritins maid; the duchess's maid, Pembery; and Sarai's maid, Boulaj, stayed in the Robing Pavilion. Pembery was to introduce Boulaj to members of the rebellion's network among the servants of the court. Both were ready to glean information from the winter's crop of gossip, news, and whispers. Aly turned down the chance to be introduced now— she wanted a view of the court. Later she would find out who served the rebellion here. Instead she entered the throne room in the wake of her employers.

Meek in her green-on-white printed sarong, her hair covered by a green headcloth, she found a place in the rear to view the proceedings. If questioned, Aly had a reasonable excuse for her presence: she had never been here before. She had come once, as Kyprioth's guest, to view Dunevon's coronation, but that visit had been one of the spirit only. Today she was able to appreciate the realities of the hall: the textures of wood and stone, the scents of flowers, and the whispers and shifting of those in attendance.

The master of ceremonies bowed deeply to the duchess and to Lady Nuritin. He stepped onto the gleaming floor of the throne room and thumped his ebony staff on the brass disk provided for that purpose. Courtiers as colourful as butterflies turned to look at him. His voice rang from the high, arched ceiling and its gilded beams as he proclaimed, "Her Grace, the Duchess Winnamine Balitang. Duke Elsren Balitang. Her Ladyship, Nuritin Balitang. Lady Saraiyu Balitang, Lady Dovasary Balitang, Lady Petranne Balitang."

The family stepped forward when he turned and bowed to them. Slowly, their chins high, they crossed the expanse of floor. Elsren and Petranne, clinging to their half sisters' hands, did their best to act as formal as five- and six-year-olds could look. Their great-aunt, mother, and sisters walked slowly so that the little ones could keep up.

Aly memorized the position of every guardsman in the room. Interestingly, those on duty here did not wear the combined sun and moon that was on the cuirasses of the Rittevon guards who patrolled the palace grounds. These men wore black breeches and chain-mail shirts, covered with an open-sided black tunic. They wore armoured caps and carried broad-bladed spears. These men were the King's Guard, the personal bodyguards of the Rittevon rulers. Once more the Rittevon paranoia showed itself. Their kings could not even bring themselves to trust the guards named after them, but relied on the King's Guard instead. Aly glanced up and found black-uniformed archers with crossbows positioned on the beams from which the hall's lamps were suspended.

Aly was impressed. She had heard of the new commander of the King's Guard, a man named Taybur Sibigat. He had certainly smartened them up since Kyprioth had last brought her here. These were not bored or panicky men, as Hazarin's and Oron's guards had been. These were hard professionals, alert and attentive.

At last she turned her eyes to the dais, where the kingdom's rulers awaited the Balitangs. The dais was reached by a number of broad steps. Two steps up from the floor sat the regents, Princess Imajane and Prince Rubinyan, on low-backed chairs. Aly had seen Imajane before, first at the bedside of her dying father, King Oron. At that time she hadn't appreciated just how imposing Oron's only surviving daughter was. She did now.

The princess was an icily beautiful woman who wore her silvering blond hair in a double-domed style. Her chilly blue eyes were placed under commanding arched brows, and she sat with her chin high, like a queen. Her lips were a vivid red against her white skin, which was further set off by a pink gown under a sleeveless overrobe of white silk bordered with silver. She dripped silver jewelry with pink and gray pearls and blue sapphires.

If only someone could teach these people the meaning of restraint in adornment, Aly thought with a silent sigh. They’re like newly ennobled merchants. They just
have
to show everyone they have money.

Ten feet to his wife's right sat Prince Rubinyan, the brother of the man who had killed Duke Mequen the year before. A tall, balding man with hard gray eyes and thin lips, he wore a white silk shirt and hose, and a deep blue tunic with figures of dragons in its weave. Like his wife he wore rings on every finger. His were gold set with rubies, onyx, and sapphires.

Their heads were bare even of the modest gold circle they had the right to wear as prince and princess, but they held themselves as if crowned. Aly wondered if it had occurred to them that their lives might be easier if something happened to Dunevon and they simply grabbed the throne for themselves. From the cold, shining pride that flowed from them, she was willing to bet that it had.

Five steps higher on the dais, the source of their power, King Dunevon, sat uncomfortably on an immense teak throne. He was a bit younger than Elsren, and plainly bored. Aly's heart went out to the child, clad in gold and cream silk, a small crown on his head. He was absorbed in something tucked between his side and the arm of the throne. She suspected he had a toy up there.

A man in the chain mail and black tunic of the King's Guard stood at the king's side in a relaxed posture, observing the room. Around his neck hung the gold chain and gold-framed iron disk that marked him as the Guard's captain. This would be the new man, Taybur Sibigat. Aly memorized his face and the way he stood, then turned her gaze back to the child. She wondered how long the boy had been sitting there and how much longer he would do so quietly. Elsren would have thrown a tantrum by now.

Dunevon kicked his soft leather shoes against the throne. Sibigat reached out a gentle hand and placed it on the child's knee. Dunevon’s feet went still. His lower lip came out in a pout. This is no life for such a little fellow, Aly thought.

A chill crept up her spine. If the raka had their way, Dunevon would die. Left alive, he would be someone for dissatisfied nobles to rally around. The raka couldn't afford that.

Winnamine and the other Balitangs had stopped three feet from the foot of the dais. The ladies of the group curtsied, seemingly to Dunevon, while Elsren executed a carefully rehearsed bow. Imajane rose and clasped Winnamine's hands in hers. They kissed one another formally on both cheeks as Rubinyan stood.

"Welcome home, Your Grace, my ladies," said the princess. The room was shaped perfectly. Aly could hear the princess as clearly at the rear as if she stood in front. "Welcome to His Majesty's court."

Aly heard the tap of hard-soled boots on the floor behind her. Gloved hands grasped her elbows. One of the two men who had taken hold of her bent down to whisper in her ear, "Come quietly, wench. Draw attention and we'll make you squeak."

Aly made her eyes wide with fright, bit her lip, and nodded. When the men steered her out of the throne room, she trembled just as Aly Homewood, the lady's maid, would surely do. She was being taken captive for some kind of questioning, that was plain. How forceful would the questioning be? She would hate to
need
Kyprioth's protection against her telling the truth under torture. Out onto the Golden Road they went. The silver shimmer of the Gift wrapped around Aly and the men. Whoever had given her captors their orders did not want anyone to know who they had taken. Only one person in the realm would grab the Balitangs' full-blood luarin maid on her first appearance at the palace: Topabaw.

Letting the men half-carry her quivering body, Aly sank deep into her mind, into the liar's palace she had built in her thoughts all through the winter. Most people thought it was impossible for a Giftless human to fool truth drugs or spells, but it was not. Development of a liar's palace had been a game between her and her beloved adopted uncle Numair, Tortall's most powerful mage, a game she had studied until she could fool even him. While he could have broken her if he'd used all of his immense power, he had only tested the strength of her liar's palace against the normal truth spells. The odds were very long that she would ever be questioned by a mage of his stature.

The farther they went, the more nervously Aly behaved, giving her best interpretation of someone who expected nothing good of those in power. She was babbling questions and protests of innocence while her mind weighed her captors. Something was off about them, something that she ought to have identified already. She looked at each from the corners of her eyes, then finally realized what it was: both men were full-blood luarin. It was a sign that she had been in the Isles for some time, that she had come to expect everyone to be some shade of raka brown.

The men guided Aly eastward, followed silently by three crows. The buildings here were nondescript, despite the gorgeous landscape. These would not be state areas but working ones, where economy was considered before grandeur. When they stopped, she gauged that they were somewhere near the northeast corner of the palace grounds, right beside the Raka Wall. Her guides stopped at a building that showed only a small plaque set in the wall beside the front door: INTELLIGENCE.

Aly went from trembling to shaking in the guards' hold as they took her inside. They didn't appear to notice, but she knew they would spot it quickly if she didn’t act like the others who were brought here did. Inside, the walls gleamed in Aly's Sight with spells for silence and fear. Tears began to leak from her eyes as her body was affected by the spells, but her mind worked as coolly as ever. Her father had taken most of her fourteenth year to make her accustomed to all kinds of fear magic. She would be frightened, but it wouldn't swamp her reason if she held her concentration.

This is going to be tricky, she thought.

The guards propelled her through one broad stone corridor and turned down another. Chained men and women hung from the walls. Some of these people were more than halfway to the Peaceful Realms of the Black God of death. Aly cowered from them, as she was expected to do. She wept harder, from pity, and she made certain to count every one. She would add their sum to Topabaw's and the regents' accounts when the time came to bill them.

She understood that she was meant to notice these people's pain. It confirmed the stories of the spymaster's work that had reached her ears that winter and before, at home in Tortall.

"It is just the worst possible combination," her grandfather Myles had said once, shaking his shaggy head. He was Tortall’s official spymaster or, as his son-in-law liked to call him, the Target. "Duke Lohearn is a spymaster as well as a mage, and he has been at his post for thirty years. He thinks he can do everything. If he can’t, he'll just kill the problem. No skill, just power."

Aly thought her grandfather might be right. If Topabaw had gotten lazy, secure in his own reputation, Aly would have an opportunity to knock him from his vital position.

The guards turned down a third hall, which ended at an open door. They pushed Aly inside. As she sprawled, they slammed the door, leaving her alone with the room's occupant.

She looked up at Duke Lohearn Mantawu: the ill-famed Topabaw. He sat on a plain chair, one hand braced on his thigh, one resting on a crude table that held a large parchment book, inkpot and quill, a three-throated lamp that smelled of cheap oil, a pitcher, and a pair of cups. Aly closed her eyes and adjusted her Sight so that the blaze of his magical Gift, added to the spells on the charms that bedecked the man, wouldn't blind her. Fumbling at her sash, she drew out a clean handkerchief and blew her nose.

Under the layers of charms, Aly saw a pallid, bony aristocrat in his late fifties. He had a razor cut of a mouth, small brown eyes, and short steel-gray hair. His cheap black cotton tunic and breeches were shabby and stained. Work clothes, thought Aly. Her Sight read the stains as dried blood and other liquids.

Am I supposed to be impressed that a luarin gets his clothes dirty? Aly wondered, lowering her gaze to the man's scuffed boots. She continued to quiver and weep.

"My dear girl, get off that floor." His voice was suspiciously kind. "It's dirty. There's a stool right beside you. Sit on that."

Aly obeyed, still not looking Topabaw in the eye.

"Isn't that better?" he asked. He opened his book to a page that was already marked. "Let's see. Your name is Aly Homewood, correct?"

Aly nodded, then scrambled to say, "Yes, my lord."

"Very good." He smiled mirthlessly, not parting his lips. "Luarin slave, given to House Balitang with the purchase of a cook on April 24, 462. Formerly a maidservant at Fief Tameran in Tortall. No bids were made for your purchase in the slave market." Icy amusement was in his voice as he added, "I think it would be very different if you were to go to the selling block at present. Some would consider you to be most fetching."

That was supposed to frighten her. She whimpered and cringed. "Please don't sell me, sir," she pleaded. "I've a good place, I'm learning to be a lady's maid—"

"Quiet," he ordered gently.

Aly went instantly silent.

"Taken into exile by Duke Mequen Balitang. Served as goatherd, then maid. Fought for your owners during a kidnap and murder attempt by our prince-regent's brother, Bronau Jimajen. Freed as a result. Now serving as maid to Lady Dovasary Balitang. You're a clever girl, Aly Homewood."

Aly bobbed her head. "Thank you, my lord, sir—"

"Your Grace," he said gently. "I have the rank of duke. Look at me when I speak to you, my dear."

Aly raised her eyes as she was commanded to, still shaking. Gazing at him openly, she realized that he did not look like the Crown's stone hammer. There were dark circles under his eyes. His skin was dry and cracked, his lips bitten and peeling. There was the slightest tremor in his hands. His hair looked greasy, as if he had not washed it for a while. This was a man who had been forced to work hard of late.